


Theef

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [155]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Banter, F/M, IVF, Infertility, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-10-01 03:43:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10179935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf
Summary: Picking a safe house almost 300 miles away was supposed to get the Weiders out of Peattie’s effective range. For all the good that ended up doing.





	

“Is he dead?” 

Lucy Wieder’s shaky question snaps Scully back to herself, and she walks over to crouch by Peattie. She can feel a pulse, but it’s thready. Her shot may have missed his heart, but he still has a major chest wound, and all she has to work with is a basic first aid kit. 

“He’s alive for now, but I don’t know if he’ll survive long enough to get him out of here. We’re at least 50 miles from the nearest hospital.”

“There’s an ambulance coming right behind me,” Mulder says quietly. “I had them send one just in case.”

She gives him a look that tries to convey _Thank you_ and _I love you_ and _Way to plan ahead, you brilliant man_ all at once. The subtle, knowing smile he gives her back says he read her loud and clear. 

“Okay then. I need to put pressure on this. Mulder, can you hand me that blanket? And Doctor Wieder? How about you, are you all right?”

“I-I think so. I don’t know how, but… yes, I think so.” Hesitantly, he pushes himself up to his feet, his daughter right by his side to support him. “It felt like I was having a massive infarction. He was holding a knife up to that… voodoo doll thing. But as soon as he dropped it--”

“Your symptoms immediately went away,” Mulder interjects. “With Oral Peattie incapacitated, his control over you via the poppet was broken. Since he chose a heart attack instead of some obscure disease like he did with the others, you shouldn't have any lasting effects. Though you probably should get checked out anyway, just to be safe.”

Ordinarily, Scully would offer some sort of counterpoint to that theory, or at least point out that there is no concrete evidence of what Mulder’s claiming. This time, though… this time she honestly doesn’t know what to believe or disbelieve. Less than five minutes ago, she was completely blind. Technically, the possibility exists that it was a psychosomatic blindness, a physiological reaction brought about by fear and her own altered body chemistry. But she also saw the poppet with the eyes gouged out. It is too strong a connection to be mere coincidence.

Then again, she thought the poppet was supposed to have a photo and strand of hair from the victim inside. Where would Peattie have gotten those things for her?

The whine of the ambulance siren becomes audible in the distance, cutting through her musing and bringing her attention back to the matter at hand.

“Mulder, can you help me get Mr. Peattie off the stairs?”

“Of course.”

They’ve just got him settled flat on the floor when the EMTs arrive. Scully briefs them on his condition while they load him on a stretcher and staunch the bleeding enough to get him to the van. She walks out with them to see if they need her to ride along, but there isn’t any room for her, anyway.

That’s when she sees what Peattie did to her car. Her stomach drops, as everything suddenly clicks into place.

She never went back out to get her ID.

She’d forgotten it on her first trip into the house, and even though she realized it right away and intended to go back out and grab it after she’d gotten the Wieders settled, she must have gotten sidetracked.

Mulder’s hand settling on her lower back makes her jump. She hadn’t heard him walk up behind her.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” He nods toward the car. “Peattie must have broken in to get a strand of your hair off the headrest so he could finish his poppet. I’m not sure how, but he managed to steal your building ID at some point as well.”

“I left it in the car,” she whispers, deeply ashamed to have been so careless. It is not quite a fireable offense, but it’s a serious breach of operational security. Not even a rookie would make the mistake of leaving his or her official ID unguarded, regardless of the fact that it was hidden in a locked car. 

This is the third time in as many weeks that she’s done something scatterbrained, though neither of the other incidents was this severe. Since she started the hormone treatment in preparation for her IVF, her focus just hasn’t been what it usually is. She promised herself that trying to have a baby wouldn’t affect her performance at work, but…

“He would have found another way.” He’s trying to be reassuring, she knows, but it’s not really helping. “Or if he hadn’t been able to use his craft, he might have tried something more permanent. It’s probably just as well he was able to go with his first choice.”

“Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I messed up. Skinner’s going to be furious, and rightly so.”

“Well, he doesn’t need to know how it happened.”

“Mulder--”

“There are any number of ways Peattie could have gotten his hands on a photo of you.”

“Mulder, stop! I’m not lying on my field report, and I’m not tampering with evidence. I won’t try to run away from a mistake just because it was an unbelievably stupid one. Please, you know me better than that.”

“I know, I just…” He looks down at the ground. “I’m not used to you being the one to get in trouble.”

She huffs a laugh. “Come on. I’ve been reprimanded plenty of times, and you know it.”

“Yeah, but almost always because you were covering my ass.”

“Excuse me, Agent Scully?” Doctor Wieder calls from the doorway of the cabin. “Do we still have to stay here tonight, or is it safe for us to go back home now?”

Scully sighs. _Right, the Wieders_. “You should take them back home, Mulder. I’ll stay here with the car until someone from the San Francisco field office can come out and process it.”

“I don’t think we’re going to be prosecuting this case, Scully. I mean, even if Peattie _does_ survive, what judge is going to buy murder by folk magic? We can leave the car here overnight. Let them come tow it away in the morning.”

She shakes her head, folding her arms across her chest. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this from you. Since when do we not prosecute a case just because there are paranormal elements to it?” 

“Well, I don’t like the idea of you being alone out here without any backup or means of transportation. That goes against Bureau protocol, too.”

“The car is driveable. In an emergency, I could get out. And I wasn’t going to have any backup out here alone with the Wieders, anyway.”

“Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have,” he mumbles, then gives a frustrated sigh. “Well then why don’t you take them home, and I’ll stay?”

“How is that different? Mulder, what is this really about? Are you suggesting I can’t do my job?”

“No, but you shouldn’t be subjecting yourself to any unnecessary risk right now! Okay?”

“Ah.” She drops her arms, resting her hands on her hips instead. He has the decency to look sheepish, at least. “While I appreciate your concern, I promise you I’m fine.” She puts an end to the conversation by turning away and walking back toward the cabin. “Agent Mulder will take you and Lucy home, Dr. Wieder. I’ll help you get your things.”

***

He watches with a knot in his stomach as she walks away. It’s not that he doesn’t trust she can take care of herself. Certainly, by the time he got through the door ready to save the day, Peattie was down and Scully had control of the situation. Of course, if he hadn’t been there to take the nails out of the poppet’s eyes… 

But she’s right. The danger has passed, and it’s not as though she couldn’t drive the car away if she absolutely had to. The window’s broken and there’s evidence to be collected, but if push came to shove, the car does work. He puts his hands in his pockets and turns away from the cabin, staring out into the trees as if they hold some answers.

It’s just been a weird few weeks.

She claimed that she wasn’t angry with him over that whole mess with the ova, but things were awkward and stilted between them for days. It was true that she didn’t seem _angry_ per se, but the easy intimacy to which he’s grown accustomed was suddenly gone. She sort of pulled into herself at work, doing what needed to be done but more by rote than with any sort of directed attention; it was clear her thoughts were elsewhere. It’s a strange sensation, missing someone when they’re right there in the same room.

And then he went with her to meet Doctor Parenti. Something about the guy rubbed him the wrong way. He couldn’t put his finger on it, though, and he had to wonder if he wasn’t just being paranoid; after all, every previous time Mulder has stepped into a fertility clinic, it’s been because something shady was going on there. He doesn’t exactly have the greatest associations with those places. So he kept a wary eye on the doctor while trying to keep an open mind, for Scully’s sake. She was so tense with nervous and hopeful energy that it would have been cruel to voice his unease just then. 

He went back the next day, alone, to provide his “donation.” He’d hoped to have a chance to interact with Parenti one on one and maybe get a better handle on what exactly was bugging him about the guy, but apparently the good doctor was out of the office that afternoon. Instead, a very pretty medical assistant took him to a room and handed him a cup. 

“It’s okay to be nervous,” she said with a smile. “Take as much time as you need.”

He scoffed and tried to joke, but as soon as the door closed, the weight of what he was about to undertake came crashing down on him. He almost called Scully, simply because it felt wrong somehow to do this with so much space between them. He’d told her he was a pro at this part, but he didn’t expect it to feel like this. Why did this feel like so much more than just getting himself off? Something intimate and momentous, Important with a capital I. 

He almost called her, but then he put the phone back in his pocket instead. He didn’t want her to misunderstand, to think he was having second thoughts. He also wasn’t ready to admit how much he’d started to hope that, despite the overwhelming odds, this might actually work. That there actually _could_ be a little boy with her freckles and his smile, a little girl with his eyes and her hair.

It took a while to get going, but he got there eventually, his eyes squeezed shut and his mind working just as hard as his hand.

His breath caught when he had to sign the form waiving paternal rights in the event that the IVF was successful. He knew it was standard procedure, that together they could file paperwork to change his status later, but to see it there in black and white just made it all the more real, somehow.

Things got a little better between them as the week went on. Scully began the hormone therapy that would help prepare her body for implantation. She said that Doctor Parenti had told her everything checked out with his sample, so they should at least be able to achieve fertilization. When he cracked a joke about how relieved he was to have medical confirmation of his manliness, she gave the full-throated laugh he hadn’t heard from her in a while.

They spent that night together, for the first time since their last trip out west, and it finally started to feel like the awkwardness between them was dissipating, that things were getting back to normal.

The next week, she was still distracted, clearly preoccupied by her own hopes and worries about what was to come. She locked her keys in her car one day, something she told him she hadn’t done since high school. A few days later she slept through her alarm; he ended up calling her apartment, worried, at 10am, and it was his call that finally woke her up. She apologized when she got to the office, told him she’d been having trouble sleeping, and he asked if she needed to get anything off her chest. 

“No, it’s okay, I’m fi--” she started, and his doubt must have been written all over his face because she stopped, shoulders drooping.

Long minutes passed while she sat there quietly, and he waited, watching her work through the process of deciding how much to tell him. It made him a little sad that she still felt the need to fight being vulnerable in front of him, sometimes.

“I’m afraid of becoming too invested,” she said at last. “I know logically that the odds of success are low, and I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much. But it’s hard not to, you know?”

“Scully, you’re talking to the king of false hopes,” he said, remembering first, of course, each and every time he’d thought he was close to finding Samantha. “I know exactly what you mean.”

He held her on his couch that evening, and when quiet solidarity wasn’t enough, he led her to his bed and spent a long time trying very hard to drive all thoughts of the future from her mind, at least for a while.

They haven’t spoken about it since, and for the most part, they’ve regained their equilibrium. Then this case came along, less than a week before her scheduled appointment to go in for the embryo transfer. She initially didn’t want to fly out here for it, and he almost didn’t insist, neither of them willing to acknowledge why. In the end, though, he did insist, knowing they would both regret it if he started treating her differently. 

He’s managed pretty damned well until tonight.

“Mulder? Doctor Wieder and Lucy are ready to go home.” 

He turns to see her walking toward him, her hair backlit by the light from the cabin and surrounding her face like a fiery aura. She looks like something otherworldly, something impervious, and he spends a moment in awe of her before schooling his expression back to careful neutrality. She reaches out to touch his elbow as she gets to his side.

“I put in a call to the resident agency in Bakersfield. They’ve got a team en route to process the car and the cabin, and then I’ll get a ride back with them and grab a commuter flight to San Francisco.” She runs her fingers down his forearm, and he pulls his hand out of his pocket to catch hers. “I’m sorry you have to drive all the way back to the Bay after you only just got here.”

God, has it really only been twenty minutes since he raced up the driveway with his heart in his throat, scared to death about what he might find?

He squeezes her hand. “I’m a man of the open road, Scully.” 

She chuckles. “Maybe so, but even you can’t possibly think that ten hours round-trip is some kind of picnic.”

“I’ll admit, it won’t be half as much fun without you snoring in the passenger seat beside me,” he teases, and she rolls her eyes at him with a smile.

“I do not _snore_ , Mulder.”

“Oh, no, you absolutely do. But don’t worry. They’re like adorable little kitten snores.” He tilts his head back, as if considering. “Well, most of the time, anyway.”

She pulls her hand out of his to lightly swat his arm, and it’s all he can do to keep from leaning over and kissing her. He looks back toward his car instead. “Guess I’d better not keep the Wieders waiting. You be safe out here, all right?”

“I will.” She nods. “And you be safe out there on the road. Call me when you get back to the hotel?”

“You bet.”

***

Once she can no longer see the taillights of his car, Scully turns around and goes back inside the safehouse.

And now that she is all alone, she realizes just how very, very quiet it is out here in the forest. Sunrise is still about half an hour off, and not even birdsong breaks the stillness.

She goes to the kitchen and starts a pot of coffee, then takes her notepad and pen from her bag and sits down at the table to record her version of events, while they’re still fresh in her mind.

As unpleasant as it is to admit the mistakes that nearly got her protectee killed, the thing that really gives her pause is explaining how Peattie was apparently able to blind her and attack Doctor Wieder without physically laying a hand on either one of them. Her job has always been to provide a rational counterpoint to Mulder’s paranormal theories, and though this isn’t the first time she’s been forced to agree with his assessment, that doesn’t make it any easier. She can’t help wondering if she’s missing something, if there’s a scientific explanation she just hasn’t thought of yet. Is it possible that she hasn’t thought of one because deep down she wants it to be true? 

Because if it’s true that Peattie really was able to do what he did, with words and charms and crude little dolls, then the implications for science and modern medicine are enormous. To be fair, she only saw him use this power to hurt, not help, but he sounded so convinced that he would have been able to save his daughter. Who's to say he was wrong?

Who's to say a skilled practitioner of this folk magic couldn't do the seemingly impossible?

She sets her pen down and gets up to pour herself a cup of coffee. _Get a grip, Dana_. Coming back to her chair, she tries not to burn her mouth while taking a tiny sip, and then another, her elbows resting on the table. Of course, now that the train of thought has started, she's not sure how to stop it. _What if, instead of conjuring leishmaniasis from nothing, it were possible to restore lost ova?_ Shame and longing fight for prominence; she should not even be considering something so outrageous, but how can she help it? To have this single round of IVF not be her one and only chance at biological motherhood… 

She allows herself the indulgence for only a minute before it becomes too painful. It’s a fantasy, pure and simple. Beyond the mere logistics of how she would even go about finding such a practitioner, there is still some part of her that would never go through with it, would never fully concede the defeat of science and, to some degree, faith in God’s plan.

“What’s the difference though, really?” Mulder’s voice rings in her head as clearly as if he were sitting across the table from her. “If you’re willing to accept that miracles exist, and they don’t shake your faith in science, then why is this any different?”

“I don’t know,” she says aloud, feeling a little foolish but needing to get this out, to move past it. “Maybe because I don’t accept that God would work in this way.”

“There are plenty of examples in the Bible of God working through men though, aren’t there? Both healing and, you know, smiting?”

“Maybe, but I still refuse to believe that God would deliver vengeance through Oral Peattie for a man who was sincerely trying to do the right thing. I can’t believe that, not when I would have made the same choice Dr. Weider made. No, that was man’s work, not God’s.”

“Or the Devil’s? Is that maybe why this bothers you so much, because you associate any apparent magic or miracles falling outside the bounds of Christianity to be the work of the Devil?”

She feels like the wind’s been knocked out of her. It’s so simple that she can’t imagine why she didn’t see it earlier. Her guilt and shame over feeling tempted by the possibility of a magical solution to her infertility… it’s rooted in a deep-seated fear of being led astray by evil. Of course it is.

And the answer was buried in her subconscious all this time, obviously. She’s not sure whether it’s interesting or troubling that it took a mental echo of Mulder to bring it to the surface.

Now that she’s identified it, though, she can start working to move past it. She takes another sip of coffee and then moves the mug to the side, picking up her pen to finish writing her report.

***

It is a very long and intensely boring drive back up north. Picking a safe house almost 300 miles away was supposed to get the Weiders out of Peattie’s effective range. _For all the good that ended up doing_. Mulder still has no idea how Peattie managed to find them, let alone travel halfway across the state without, apparently, any sort of vehicle. The only one parked at the cabin was Scully’s rental car, and it seems pretty unlikely she would have missed someone hiding in the trunk when she went to get the bags out of it. 

The Weiders, of course, are so exhausted by their ordeal that they both fall asleep within the first half hour of the drive. Mulder keeps the radio on but low, finding sports talk programs where he can, settling for music when he must, as stations come in and out of range. The steadily lightening sky helps keep him awake, and he goes through half a bag of sunflower seeds before they even hit the I-5, spitting the shells into a paper cup, the sensation of his tongue going numb from the salt almost comforting in its familiarity. 

Hours pass with the steady drone of tires on asphalt and the intermittent crack of seed husks breaking. Somewhere in the endless cattle country of the Central Valley, he pulls off for gas at a truck stop, stretching his back with a groan when he steps out of the car. 

His phone trills in his pocket, and when he sees Scully’s name on the call ID, his insides seize.

“Scully? Are you okay, is something wrong?”

“I’m fine, Mulder. We finished up at the cabin, and now I’m at the airport in Bakersfield, waiting for a flight out.”

He lets out a relieved sigh. “Good. That’s good.”

“How about you? Where are you?”

“Nearly to the turn-off, just about two hours away. That hotel bed is calling my name, Scully.”

“Well, you’re not going to like this, then. The reason I’m calling is I just found out they life flighted Peattie up to the USF Medical Center about an hour ago. I’m going to head over there as soon as I land and was hoping you could meet me there.”

He sighs again, this time out of resignation rather than relief. He will get to sleep again someday, right?

“You got it, Scully. I’ll see you there.”


End file.
